What The Critics Are Saying About Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy
Critic reviews for "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" are here, and so far there have been few negatives about the game. Considering a lot of fans were worried about "Guardians of the Galaxy," the stellar reviews should give Marvel fans a chance to relax with a sigh of relief.
For starters, it's worth recalling Polygon's Ryan Gilliam's words that the game is "the biggest surprise of the year." Considering Square Enix's "Avengers" game bombed in sales, gamers expected "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" to do the same. While sales numbers aren't available yet, critics had a lot of praise for the single-player story game and found it engaging.
Luke Winkie from PC Gamer called the game "a bit of a dinosaur" because of its completely story-driven plot, but he didn't mean it in a negative way. In fact, Winkie welcomed the retro feel of "Guardians of the Galaxy." IGN's Tom Marks agreed, saying that it's a "convincing example of how much fun a linear, no-frills, single-player campaign can be." The surprisingly emotional connections between the characters and the wacky story were enough to keep most critics entertained for the entire game.
The Guardians are just as dynamic as always
Marvel fans know just how rough and tough the Guardians in "Guardians of the Galaxy" are, and Ryan Gilliam pointed out that the group has the same dynamic in the game. However, their relationships build and, throughout the game, the entire team's bond can strengthen with the right player choices.
Players can only play the game as Star-Lord, the leader of the Guardians, and they'll have a lot of discussions with characters throughout the game. For some critics, like Tom Marks and Gilliam, the side conversations were genius and really immersed them in the game. For others, like Eurogamer's Vikki Blake, the chit-chat was almost distracting.
However, the theme of a "found family" had many critics begging for more. Decisions the critics made impacted the story enough for some characters to eventually leave when they felt slighted. Gilliam mentioned that he rushed through the parts of the story just to get characters back on the team because he genuinely missed them.
Along with the vibrant characters, wacky story sequences were everywhere. Luke Winkie pointed out that the surprising story events kept them entertained and gave them something to look back on with fondness when issues arose.
There were a few technical problems, but it should all be solved by release
One of the major complaints overall was that there were some game-breaking bugs across multiple versions of the game. Luckily for critics, various checkpoints in the game made it so that none of the restarts were too frustrating. Fans shouldn't run into this issue, though. Tom Marks said that Square Enix already mentioned that the game would be updated with a day one patch to fix the majority of issues. However, some critics were still wary, and Luke Winkie believed that it could take months to patch the bugs out.
Despite the substantial bugs, critics praised the game. If you're a "Guardians of the Galaxy" fan, then the game should be a great way to experience the characters and new story ideas while you wait for Episode 3 to finally be released. Tom Marks added that the game was easily replayable, which made it even better for a single-player game.